This is another Alternate Reality puzzle Game (ARG) that I built for another friend who had taken part in The Swiss Account. This player is somebody who already reveled in solving difficult puzzles, so I had to make it difficult in a different sort of way.
Like the the earlier ARG, not all the artifacts remain to show off, but I feel like these files give a pretty good sense of the overall flow of the game.
THE PREMISE: In order to get for Ash to get his *very* valuable birthday present, he had to get help from all of his friends. The problem was all of his friends are now absolute jerks to him in the ARG.
THE MECHANISM: He would open and close each conversation with his friends with code words that would allow him to access puzzles that he could use to access other friends who gave him all the pieces that would solve his end puzzle. His friends were under no obligation to be nice to him though (and they had a lot of fun with that). They couldn’t lie to him but they could certainly mislead him. Once he used the right code phrase on them though, they had to admit defeat and give up their role in the game. They would also give him a Super Mario chocolate egg with a toy, a new puzzle, and a steam game code inside.
He progressed through people in a pyramid style where once player A was defeated, the puzzle details lead to players B and C. B would lead to D and E, and so on.
THE END GAME: “Pi is key” was a motif of the game. His final puzzle had him meeting a friend of mine he didn’t know in a public park and exchanging a pie for a locked pelican case that could be opened with the code 314 159. That locked case gave him details that took him to a webpage with his prize in the form of an online gift code.
Start with the AshLetter.docx to see what he read. Then, read the Player Cheat Sheet.docx. The sheets are all in one page but each was given to a separate player so they understood their role and what to expect.
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